EU hopes licensing system will help save Indonesian forests

A worker makes wooden furniture, which could be exported to the EU with a special license, in Medan.

A worker makes wooden furniture, which could be exported to the EU with a special license, in Medan.

Photo: Binsar Bakkara, Associated Press

Photo: Binsar Bakkara, Associated Press

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A worker makes wooden furniture, which could be exported to the EU with a special license, in Medan.

A worker makes wooden furniture, which could be exported to the EU with a special license, in Medan.

Photo: Binsar Bakkara, Associated Press

EU hopes licensing system will help save Indonesian forests

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — The European Union has admitted Indonesia to a special licensing system it hopes will prevent the illegally felled tropical timber that makes up a substantial part of the country’s wood production from being shipped to the 28-nation bloc.

The EU said Thursday that Indonesia is the first country to qualify for the licenses. It will mean that traders of goods such as wooden furniture, plywood and paper that earn the certification will find it easier to do business with Europe.

But some environmental and civil society groups are already concerned the licensing system could become a conduit for illegal timber from a country where tropical forests are being cut down at an epic rate.

The EU has been trying to implement its timber system internationally for more than a decade and over the same time Indonesia has developed its own legal wood verification scheme that has become a key part of its admission to the EU’s program.

“We do believe the system is credible,” said Charles-Michel Geurts, deputy head of the EU mission to Indonesia, who emphasized the lengthy process to establish it reflected substantial effort in countering deep-seated problems in Indonesia’s forestry industry. “But today is the start date, not the finish.”

Indonesia has struggled for years to combat illegal logging that destroys the tropical forest habitat of unique animal species and deprives the government of significant revenue that could be used to improve basic services for a largely poor population of more than 250 million.

A study by the country’s anticorruption commission estimated that the commercial value of undeclared logging amounted to $60.7 billion to $81.4 billion between 2003 and 2014. The study released in October last year said official statistics on timber production capture less than a quarter of what is cut down.